


The Beginning of the End

by orochiis



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Black Eagles route, Child Abuse, Gen, Heavy Angst, Needles, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:54:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25696846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orochiis/pseuds/orochiis
Summary: A look into Edelgard's past.Written for Invincible Zines' Calamity's Advent Zine - please look at trigger warnings in tags.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Ferdinand von Aegir & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Ferdinand von Aegir & Hubert von Vestra
Kudos: 6
Collections: Calamity's Advent





	The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> I really love this piece because Edelgard's trauma is so unique to her (at least within the context of the game), and I really vibe with the platonic relationships between these three.
> 
> I will reiterate that this isn't a happy piece (though it could've been worse it ends mostly optimisitcally)

The Emperor of the Adrestian Empire is a serious woman. She takes her role seriously, focusing on the future of her Empire- spreading her wings and taking more land under them, making sure that the church is entirely reformed, creating a country in which the Crest system means nothing, and the nobility do not rely on it.

Edelgard von Hresvelg is a woman that prides herself on her dedication to the present. On ensuring that their troops are safe and healthy and looked after, on checking that there are enough weapons in the armoury, on double checking maps and routes even though it is not her job to do so- that’s what all her cabinet members are for- but she can double check that everything is the way it should be by her standards.

Edelgard does not think about the past.

Hubert von Vestra tries not to think about the past. It is three and a half years into the reign of Edelgard, and yet the Emperor’s past still remains largely a mystery to him. He knows it is awful and horrific, and why she doesn’t speak of it, but part of his mind wanders to the time when he was a child and placed in charge of Edelgard’s care. There were some atrocities committed to her at the time, and as loathe as he is to admit it, he hasn’t the faintest idea what happened to her.

He has failed in his role in a vassal, in a way. Knowing Edelgard’s past is crucial if he is to protect her- or if he is unable to protect her personally, find someone who is suitable for the job and will ensure her safety. Though Hubert has no clue as to the true nature of these atrocities, he suspects that it has something to do with Edelgard’s hatred of Crests.

Sometimes, Hubert wonders if he asked, would she tell him?

Ferdinand von Aegir is the Prime Minister of the Adrestian Empire, and takes his job very seriously, thank you very much. Despite a slightly misplaced rivalry with Edelgard in his youth, since leaving the Officer’s Academy he has fully stepped into his role, and tries not to think about what Edelgard may or may not have done to his father. He is the Prime Minister now, and if Edelgard gets her way, he won’t even need to be Duke Aegir when this is all over.

Sometimes, he takes a look at Edelgard and Hubert, and feels sick to his stomach out of a sense of jealousy rather than anything else. Though he understands well that Hubert is Edelgard’s vassal, and for over a thousand years the Vestra household have served the Hresvelg household, Ferdinand wonders if his role is not more important to the service of the Empire, and should he not be closer to Edelgard? Though maybe it is for the best, he thinks, because he cannot stand to spend more time with Hubert than he absolutely has to.

The Imperial Palace is a cold place, Ferdinand thinks, traversing the halls for the umpteenth time that day in search of Her Majesty. She is nowhere to be found, and if he was a bitter man, Ferdinand might think that Hubert is hiding Edelgard from him, despite their plans to meet today to discuss moving forward. This meeting should have nothing to do with Hubert, but he knows that the Minister of the Imperial Household will be there nonetheless.

Behind a heavy oak door, Ferdinand hears muffled voices- the first sign of life he’s heard all day. This particular corridor isn’t one he is keen to linger in- this is where Edelgard’s personal chambers are, and usually he isn’t allowed here unless invited. But he lingers regardless, hovering outside the door until he can tell that the voices do, in fact, belong to the two people he has been looking for.

“Lady Edelgard, this is a matter that I think you must share with me. I know that it is an uncomfortable subject, but…”

“Drop it, Hubert,” comes Edelgard’s cold response.

“My lady, I apologise for crossing a line.”

“No need,” Edelgard sighs. “I understand that you wish to know of my past, but… not now. Some other time.”

Ferdinand can hear a familiar clicking, and when the doors swing open, Edelgard stands there, looking not at all impressed at how Ferdinand adjusts his cravat and looks sheepishly in the direction that he came from.

“How many times have I caught you wandering where you shouldn’t be?” Edelgard asks, but her expression lacks the anger she would have said this with four years ago.

“Far too many times, Lady Edelgard. Good day to you, Hubert!” He calls, and Edelgard moves aside, allowing him to enter the room. It’s her personal parlour, where the three of them have taken tea on more than one occasion. The room is square with large windows, and in the centre is an antique tea table, set up for this afternoon’s meeting. Edelgard sits first, and Hubert and Ferdinand follow suit.

“How much did you hear when you were eavesdropping?” Edelgard’s eyes are almost cold, though Ferdinand can still see that sparkle of amusement when she regards him.

“Not much,” he admits. “You did not say where we were meeting, so I thought I should look for you.”

“Lady Edelgard will always come and find  _ you _ , Ferdinand,” Hubert says, a painful reminder through gritted teeth.

“Well, I was late already, my apologies, so I thought it would be quicker. Besides, we are all… friends. Right?”

“I suppose you are correct.”

“Enough, you two. I am already tired of your arguing. Both of you are my most valuable allies, as I believe I have said before.”

“True! Though I do have to ask… what was it you were discussing before?” Ferdinand asks, genuine curiosity getting the better of him.

“Nothing that is of your concern right now,” Edelgard is quick to answer. Out of the corner of his eye, Ferdinand swears that he can see Hubert grin.

“Perhaps you  _ should _ tell Ferdinand. Since he’s your friend.”

“That is enough, Hubert. This meeting is postponed since Ferdinand was late and I have other things to do.” Edelgard rises from her seat, abandoning her tea, and stalks out of the room.

“Do you not even want to hear why I was late?” Ferdinand calls after her, in a vain attempt of getting her to stay.

“No!” From the end of the corridor, a door slams.

Hubert sets his teacup down and glares at him across the table. Ferdinand offers him a biscuit, but this only makes Hubert glare more. He sets the plate down, the china echoing loudly in an otherwise silent room.

“You shouldn’t have asked,” Hubert says finally, leaning back in his chair, the glare fading but not entirely gone.

“Well, you should not have pushed her. From what I heard outside, she does not want to talk about it.”

“What  _ did _ you hear?” Hubert asks, eyes narrowing.

“Not much,” Ferdinand reiterates. “Just that you were asking about her past, and Lady Edelgard refusing to answer.”

“I wish to know more about Lady Edelgard. She keeps a dark secret, and treats it as if it is her own burden to bear. I just want to help her,” Hubert admits, avoiding looking directly at Ferdinand and instead into his teacup.

“Do you know what type of secret this is?”

“I believe that Edelgard went through some sort of horrific trauma as a child related to her crest. I know that she went through  _ something _ , as did the rest of her family, and that is why she was the sole heir to the throne.”

“And you believe this something is about her crest?”

“Precisely. I am worried about her. But since she won’t tell me, I can’t help her. If this is a weakness of hers that will require more protection in battle, in her home, I need to know. I need to be able to offer her the support she needs.”

“I think this is something that we both can agree upon. Perhaps you should drop the topic for now, however. You can broach the subject with her when the time is right.”

“Thank you for your input.” Hubert’s voice sounds strained giving his thanks, but the words are sincere all the same. “Perhaps you can stay to finish this cup of tea?”

* * *

“Where are we going?” Asked Edelgard, her grip tightening around her father’s hand.

“I’m sorry, Edelgard, but I can’t tell you.” He looked tired- more tired than usual anyway, and there was a sadness in his eyes that Edelgard would have been a fool to miss in the past few weeks. She supposed it had something to do with her siblings’ deaths- it was a plague, she was told, but there was no sign of it outside the Imperial Palace’s doors. Two of her other siblings had ended up in the infirmary of the palace for weeks, and she hadn’t been told when she would see them again.

She was suspicious about the whole event, but she complied quietly, walking along this dark corridor in a part of the palace that she had never seen before. At the end of the corridor, a person dressed in all black greeted them, and her father let go of her hand. The other person took a step forward, and lifted her hand with none of the gentleness that her father possessed. The mask they wore shifted slightly, and Edelgard saw the cold eyes hidden behind, chilling her to the bone.

“My name is Proclus. Come with me.”

And then her father was gone, disappearing out of sight as they descended dark stairs into what Edelgard assumed was the dungeon. She wriggled her hand in a vain attempt to lose her captor, but his grip only tightened around her wrist, keeping her in place. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the corridor only seemed to narrow, and Edelgard found herself following behind the strange man as he led her along. At the end of a corridor was a metal door, the likes of which Edelgard hadn’t seen in the palace above.

Proclus pushed her through the door, and she stumbled into a dimly lit room. There were numerous wax candles on every surface, and Edelgard pretended that she didn’t notice that some of them seemed not to be on any surface at all. Another masked person stood on the far side of the room, and yet another in an unlit corner. Proclus shoved Edelgard into a chair- surprisingly comfy given how tense the air seemed to be in the room.

Did this have something to do with her time in Faerghus, Edelgard wondered. She heard whisperings in the palace that she should never have been brought there, but she remembered such wonderful times in Faerghus, and she didn’t know why on earth it would be an issue with everyone else. Naïvely, she thought that maybe this was to protect her from the plague- if her other siblings died in the infirmary, it would leave her as the sole heir…

This thought lasted for merely a moment, when one of the masked people stepped forward, hands clasped in front of them. They cleared their throat, and Edelgard tried very hard to try and put a face to the cough. Perhaps this person was female? It was difficult to tell, with the mage’s gowns that covered all of their body, and the mask obscuring their face, but the cough was rather high pitched, and Edelgard wondered if perhaps this person would be kinder to her than Proclus was.

“My name is Kore.” The voice  _ was  _ female, Edelgard noted, a tiny victory to keep herself calm. “You are… Edelgard von Hresvelg. The youngest of the Hresvelg family.”

“That is correct.”

“And you are… twelve years old.”

“That is correct too.”

“Wonderful,” Kore drawls. “Do you possess a Crest, Miss Hresvelg?” She asked the question like she already knew the answer, but Edelgard bit her tongue and answered regardless.

“I have a minor Crest of Seiros.”

“Ah, Saint Serios’s Crest. The woman who defeated Nemesis, all those years ago. Do you know what Crest Nemesis possessed, Miss Hresvelg?”

“The Crest of Flames,” Edelgard was quick to answer. “However, it died out with him. No one is known to have possessed it since.” She studied hard when it came to learning about battle, just in case she ever had to fight for her country, and Crests were no exception.

“Very well done. However… you have made a mistake. The Crest of Flames isn’t gone. Not entirely. What if I told you it was here?”

Kore lifted a bottle from a desk just out of Edelgard’s line of sight. It glowed faintly purple, and filled Edelgard with a sense of dread that she had never felt before. Kore swished the contents around, and in the mist formed a strange pattern that Edelgard had to assume was the Crest of Flames.

“How do you put a Crest into a bottle?”

“How do you get a Crest into a person?” Kore retorts. “Not all unions that result in a child result in that child having a Crest. It’s totally random, though the chances are higher if both parents possess a Crest. Though we have found ways of… giving people Crests. If they lack them. Or giving them extra Crests.”

“What?” Edelgard asked, trying her best to stare into Kore’s eyes. “Why are you telling me this? What good will it do me?”

“Another Crest will do you good. You will become stronger if you have the Crest of Flames, as well as the Crest of Seiros you already possess. The Crests of the strongest warriors in Fódlan’s history… why, I think that could make  _ you _ the most powerful warrior in Fódlan’s history. Don’t you think?”

“I… I don’t know what you mean. I don’t want another Crest. The Crest of Seiros is enough for me.”

“Miss Hresvelg, how do I put this nicely… you have no choice.”

Kore made a signal with her gloved hand, and soon the other masked individual in the corner was in front of her, with Proclus behind her, holding her down in the chair. The new captor pushed her sleeve up past her elbow, and before Edelgard had a chance to protest any further, Kore pushed a needle into her right arm.

Edelgard’s vision went white, and yet at the same time it felt as if the world was spinning around her. Her head fell backwards, and yet Proclus was there to support it. It felt like her arm was on fire, convulsing with whatever Kore injected her with, and yet Kore’s gloved hands cooled her arm. Nausea built in her stomach, and yet she has no desire to vomit.

“What… have you done…” she managed to spit through gritted teeth, barely getting the words out due to the pain her whole body is enveloped in.

“If you don’t die like your siblings did,” Proclus explained, his voice eerily smooth, far away from her ears despite being right above her, “you will be only the second person in history to possess two Crests. But unlike her, you will be the strongest person in all of Fódlan. Edelgard von Hresvelg, you will lead Fódlan into a new dawn…”

“Who are you?” She mumbled, vision fading from white to black, eyelids falling closed.

“We are the Agarthans. Those who live in the shadows of Fódlan, pulling the strings of politics, making decisions like this… those who operate where we can’t be seen, where we can’t be heard…”

Edelgard didn’t hear a word.

* * *

S he woke in her bedroom, her eyes moving, her head moving, but the rest of her body paralysed. Whether this was through fear or because of what happened to her, Edelgard didn’t know. Beside her bed sat one of the servants that regularly helped her dress. She sat bolt upright when she saw the princess awaken, rushing to adjust her blankets.

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re awake! Do you know where you are?”

“My bedroom,” Edelgard managed to say, though her voice barely squeaked out through her chapped lips.

“Wonderful. And what date is it?” The maid asked, her eyes kind and caring and gentle, a far cry from the last woman Edelgard stared into the eyes of.

“The twenty fourth of the Horsebow Moon.”

“It’s the twenty fifth, but you’ve been asleep for a long time, so I won’t hold that against you. I’m just glad you’re well, Lady Edelgard.”

“What happened?” She asked, trying her best to move her limbs. Thankfully, her fingers twitched- she isn’t fully paralysed at least.

“I don’t know,” the servant answered, chewing on her bottom lip. “I’ve just been told to keep an eye on you. Do you want me to fetch your father?”

“No,” she was quick to respond, “can you fetch Hubert instead?”

“I’ve been told not to let him in.”

“Why not?”

“Because… your father told me not to. I apologise, Lady Edelgard.”

Edelgard closed her eyes, letting her head fall back on her pillow. If she really concentrated, she could lift her left arm, but her right arm stayed stubbornly on the mattress. The maid quietly exited the room, bowing her head as she did.

Over the next few hours, Edelgard tested the limits of her body, while trying to recall the events of yesterday. Eventually, her body allowed her to sit upright in her bed, and her mind cleared the fog, reminding her of quite  _ why _ she had forgotten what had happened. Gingerly, she shifted the fingers on her right hand, one by one, tensed the muscles in her hand, relaxed them, lifted her wrist off the mattress and allowed it to fall again.

The palm of her right hand lit up when she turned it over, the light of the Crest of Flames shining in the otherwise dim room. A harsh knock came at her door, and the Crest disappeared. She called out a feeble ‘enter’, wiping her face with her hand that would move. The tears made the back of her hand wet, but she carefully tucked it under the blankets. Hubert slipped through the door, unnoticed by any guards stationed outside or servants in the vicinity. Usually, Edelgard would have been glad to see him, but now… not so much.

“Lady Edelgard,” Hubert greeted, closing the door quietly behind him. His head was bowed deeply, and Edelgard could never forget the look on his face when he lifted his head. “What in all of Fódlan has happened to you?”

“Come now Hubert, I can’t look  _ that _ ghastly.” It wasn’t the time for jokes- she knew her skin must be grey, cheeks sticky with tears, and if her stomach grumbled one more time…

Hubert crossed the room in a few quick strides, and lifted the hand mirror from the bedside table and held it to Edelgard’s face. True, she looked dreadful, but the most notable difference was her hair. What once framed her face in soft brown curls was now ratty white strands that hung limply. Her usual purple ribbons were gone, and she hoped that the maid had removed them, and they weren’t another thing taken from her by those people in the basement. She was in half a mind to march down to the basement herself and take them all out, but that was what they wanted, wasn’t it?

“Don’t cry,” Hubert said, with something in his voice that Edelgard didn’t recognise. She hadn’t even realised that she was crying again, and wiped furiously at her cheeks. “Lady Edelgard… with your permission, I will remove whoever did this to you with immediacy.”

“Patience, Hubert. All in good time.”

* * *

Ferdinand returns to the Imperial Palace on Edelgard’s request - not command – six months after she had yelled at him. They had seen each other countless times in between for war meetings and quelling skirmishes, but there is something almost melancholy in her writing, and when he arrives she pours her heart out to him and Hubert, crying after every other sentence.

He holds her hand - her right hand, he doesn’t fail to notice – when she grasps out for something and finds his hand as the physical form of support. Hubert’s gloved hand grips her shoulder, and Ferdinand is sure his knuckles are white underneath.

“And…” he begins, finally breaking the silence, “we are working with these people? For  _ what _ , Edelgard? After all that they did to you?”

“Yes.” She swallows hard, and lifts her head, finally, straightening the horns that so often adorn the sides of her head. “But only until we win this war. Then we will eradicate any mention of their existence from Fódlan’s history. They have incredible power, and that is why we will eliminate them.”

“Lady Edelgard, I suggest you don’t speak so loudly of them. I am certain that they have spies everywhere.”

“I would think the same. Yet what are they to do? They made me into the strongest person in Fódlan, and yet they expect me to sit idly and let them continue to reign terror in the Adrestian Empire while I’m in charge? Absolutely not. They made me the way I am, and I will remove them. I will make them pay for what they’ve done… after I use them for my own purposes.”

“And what are we calling this organisation, Lady Edelgard? For… official records only. Proper correspondence, and that,” Ferdinand asks, and watches as something in the emperor’s eyes shifts.

“Those Who Slither In Darkness.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can get the zine [here](https://twitter.com/InvincibleZine/status/1290290668787695616?s=20) if you're interested!


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